Santa Barbara County Biographies

J. D. AXTELL

Submitted by Peggy Hooper

This file is part of the California Genealogy & History Archives
http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~cagha/index.htm

J. D. AXTELL, Superintendent of the County Hospital, was born in Pike, Wyoming County, 
New York, in 1835. His father was one of the pioneers of that county in 1828. The subject 
of this sketch was educated and lived in his native county, engaged in farming, hotel-
keeping, and other enterprises, up to the opening of the war. He enlisted at Pike, August 
25, 1861, in Company F, Fifth New York Cavalry, under Colonel O. De Forest, there being 
1,100 men in the regiment. They were first sent to Staten Island to drill in sword exercise. 
Leaving there in November, 1861, they went to Baltimore, and there being mounted they 
went forward to Annapolis and joined General Hutch's corps of cavalry. Mr. Axtell 
sustained an injury at Annapolis, was sent to the hospital and was discharged December 
18, 1861. He spent the winter at home and in the following spring joined the Quarter- 
master's Department at Washington, and in 1863 was sent to Johnsville, Tennessee, to take 
charge of a saw-mill, sawing timber for railroad ties and bridges, and there remained 
until the close of the war. The following ten years he engaged in railroad work and hotel- 
keeping, and in February, 1878, came to California. He first settled at Lompoc, but the year 
being dry he did no business. In November, 1878, he was appointed Superintendent of the 
County Hospital. In 1880 he took up a Government claim on the Santa Ynez River, and there 
farmed for three years; then sold out and went to Lompoc, where he kept a hotel. In 1886 
he was reappointed Superintendent of the County Hospital, and has since held the position. 
This hospital is the home for the sick, feeble and infirm residents of the county, and averages 
about twenty inmates. 

Mr. Axtell was married at Castile, Wyoming County, New York, in April, 1873, to Miss Nellie 
M. Anderson. They have but one child living� Miss Nellie. Mr. Axtell is a member of Magnolia 
Lodge, No. 242, F. & A. M., and of the order of the Eastern Star, Marguerite Lodge, No. 78, 
of which his wife is Worthy Matron. 

History of Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo and Ventura Counties, California  - by 
C.M. Gidney, Benjamin Brooks, Edwin M. Sheridan, Vol I, II.  -Lewis Publ. Co., 
Chicago, 1917.